How to debate a Christian

[NoGodaloud ?]

then i guess you have a better explanation for our existence. what is it ?
if you answer : i don't know, i can help you out.

No, you really can't. I don't believe things on faith.

I think you don't know Goedels incomplete theorem.

I have a personal virtual library, where i collect answers to issues, which i regard relevant, and which makes it easyer for me to find the information i want.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/philosop...m-t274.htm

Faith and Reason are not enemies. In fact, the exact opposite is true! One is absolutely necessary for the other to exist. All reasoning ultimately traces back to faith in something that you cannot prove.

For example you cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times. You can only observe that it’s consistently true every time. Nearly all scientific laws are based on inductive reasoning. All of science rests on an assumption that the universe is orderly, logical and mathematical based on fixed discoverable laws.
You cannot PROVE this. (You can’t prove that the sun will come up tomorrow morning either.) You literally have to take it on faith. In fact most people don’t know that outside the science circle is a philosophy circle. Science is based on philosophical assumptions that you cannot scientifically prove. Actually, the scientific method cannot prove, it can only infer.
(Science originally came from the idea that God made an orderly universe which obeys fixed, discoverable laws - and because of those laws, He would not have to constantly tinker with it in order for it to operate.)

I don't believe something because I don't have an answer. I don't need an answer. I'm perfectly comfortable with saying I don't know because you know what? No one knows.

You might never know in the sense of find absolute proof. These you will find only in mathematical formulas. But you can think , and find out the most rational and reasonable answer to a series of things.
Specially today, where our scientific knowledge is advanced as never before, and alouds us to have a insight of how our universe, and living beings work. This gives us a platform to deductive reasoning, as we never before had. So its really not wrong to believe, to deduce God as being the best answer, because no other answer makes sense to explain things of our natural world. If you say " i don't know " at the beginning of a scientific journey, that makes perfectly sense. To say however still " i don't know", how it might happened, that first life arose on earth, after you have over 50 years of advanced study, is quit a different thing. After you know, that a living eukaryotic cell contains many hundreds of thousands of different complex parts, including various motor proteins. These parts must be assembled correctly to produce a living cell, the most complex ‘machine’ in the universe—far more complex than a Cray supercomputer. You can say, after the question arises, how it could have arised : " i don't know", or you could say : a natural origin is very unlikely, specially because a living cell contains DNA , which is complex and specific encoded information, and information comes always from a mind. Therefore, the most probable explanation, is, that God created life.

Science has a good idea how the universe, life, species, etc... came to be.

I really don't think so.

Evolution is a fact.

Micro-evolution is. Macro-evolution is controversial, So its not a fact.

Big Bang is a fact.

Good that you agree on this. Since the Big Bang is the beginning of our universe, it has a cause. What cause do you suggest ?

I don't have to take an extra step and imagine a creator god to accept those.

You have far from explained a series of issues, which also demand a explanation :

how was the universe finely tuned to life ? how did life arise on earth ? why is there Sex ? why are we , humans , conscious, and have thoughts, and the ability of speak ? how do you explain the information contained in DNA ? how do you explain the conscience of morality ?

Besides, for all the things science doesn't know, such as what existed before Planck time, (The time before the Big Bang) I'm not going to assume I know. I'm going to reserve judgement until there's actually evidence.

You cannot base your world view only os science. Science is very limited to explain our existence. It can explain and explore the natural world, and even this only in a limited degree. But it cannot go further than explore our universe. It can't explain, why and for what reason certain things happen.

No. The Big Bang theory did not simply "Happen out of nothing". That shows your supreme misunderstanding of what it actually is. The Big Bang was a singularity that expanded outward. To the best of science's knowledge, this was rather simple stuff that eventually expanded to create the universe. However, the important thing to note is that the Big Bang has nothing to say about what happened before the big bang. So you don't know that there was nothing.

We don't know, but we can think about what is the best answer to this question. What was the singularity? It was indeed point zero, from which the Big bang started. Beyond it, there was nothing physical. No time, no matter, no space. So from this starting point, it follows rationally, that the Big Bang most probably must have had a cause. It could not create itself, since it did not exist prior to it.

Which is easier to believe? That this simple stuff always existed, or that a supreme creator caused the big bang billions of years ago and through billions of years of the universe forming, and then life evolving, he finally gets around to us and gives a shitty Bible and sends down his son as a blood sacrifice.

The former is far easier for me to believe. Especially when theists argue that God always had to existed, why not remove that extra unnecessary step and accept that maybe the universe always existed in one form or another?

two reasons ( but there are more, btw.) Second law of thermodynamics. If the universe would be eternal, the universe would already be on a state of heath death. Secondly, because

http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5231

Are numbers potentially infinite? Yes, sure they are. They can potentially go on forever and ever. Potentially, the quantity of numbers is infinitely large. There's no end to them. Now, how do you ever get from a potential infinity to an infinity when it comes to numbers? Well, you can start counting--one, two, three, four, five, billion one, billion two, a zillion one, two, a quintillion one, a quintillion two. Keep going. Do you realize that at any particular point in time as you keep adding one number to another--a procedure which potentially could go on forever--that you haven't really accomplished that feat? You haven't really gone on forever, have you? The number gets bigger and bigger, of course. But at every particular point you happen to be counting at, your count describes a finite number. Will you ever get to eternity by counting, adding one number onto another? The answer is no, you won't.

there is no infinite number of events that goes backward from this point in time, only a finite number of events. Here's another way of putting it. If you can't get into the infinite future from a fixed reference point (the present) by adding consecutive events one by one, you cannot get into the infinite past by subtracting consecutive events, one by one, from a fixed reference point (the present). If you can't transverse the distance in one direction (present to infinite past), you can't transverse it in the other direction (infinite past to present). This means that if the universe consisted of an infinite series of events in time, you could never arrive at this present moment.

I believe things on evidence. You cannot claim that what science doesn't know is God. It's a God of gaps argument, which I ain't buying. You actually have to meet a burden of proof before I will accept anything you say. Asking me "which sounds better" does not meet that burden.

To ask proofs of Gods existence is sensless. Gods existence cannot be proven. Thats why the right philosophical question is : how can we best explain our existence ?

Essentially, assertions are not proof, they are just that...assertions. I instead take the appropriately skeptical viewpoint and not accept your claim.

I don't make simple assertions. I do deductive reasoning, based on scientific knowledge, based on facts, we know through science.

[Eilonnwy]

how would you deal with the second law of thermodynamics ?

I deal with it fine. The second law deals with closed systems, the universe is not a closed system. Furthermore, it is talking about entropy, not disorder. They are two different things.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...modynamics

and : potentially a infinite number of events is possible, but not adding one event after the other, from a starting point. Then the number of events will be always finite. you can count forever, but from the startingpoint to the point you are, 1, a million , a billion, it will always be a finite number. Looking backwards, is the same. There cannot exist a infinite number of past events. They will always be finite in number. therefore, a infinite number of universes are not possible.

maibe you visit this webpage, to have it better explained :

http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5231

Humans have a hard time grasping infinity, just as you have shown.

How does this make sense to you ? from absolutely nothing, nothing derives, since absolutely nothing is the absence of any thing.....

Read "God the Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger, he tackles the nothing bit, buuut, as I've said before, it didn't necessarily come from nothing anyway.

1. The universe had a beginning, therefore a cause. Since beyond our universe, there was no time, no space, and no matter, that cause must be timeless, beginningless, eternal, spaceless, transcendent, invisible, personal, incredibly powerful. That description fits best to the God of the bible.

If everything has a cause, then what caused God?

You've simply made assertions that god exists and must have these characteristics to be an uncaused cause. You've given no logical reasoning or proof. Just bare assertions.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...irst_cause

2. The universe is finely tuned to permit life on our planet. Over 120 fine tune constants are know up to know, and as more time pasts, more are discovered. This might be due to chance, to physical need, or to design. Chance is a very bad explanation. Some advocate a Multiverse. But to have just one life permitting universe, you need 1 to 10^500 attempts to get it done. Thats a 1 with 500 zeros. If we put it in comparison, that in our universe, there exist around 10^80 atoms, this shows how improbable it is, that a Multiverse could explain finetuning. It could not be by physical need, since if so, why are there many planets, which are not life permitting, but our is ? So its best explained by design. Our earth/solar/moon system is a very strong evidence. Our solar system is embedded at the right position in our galaxy, neither too close, nor too far from the center of the galaxy. Its also the only location, which alouds us to explore the universe, In a other location, and we would not see more than stellar clouds. The earth has the right distance from the sun, and so has the moon from the earth. The size of the moon, and the earth, is the right one. Our planet has the needed minerals, and water. It has the right atmosphere, and a ozon protecting mantle. Jupiter attracts all asteroids , avoiding these to fall to the earth, and make life impossible. The earths magnetic field protects us from the deadly rays of the sun. The velocity of rotation of the earth is just right. And so is the axial tilt of the earth. Beside this, volcano activities, earth quakes, the size of the crust of the earth, and more over 70 different paramenters must be just right. To believe, all these are just right by chance, needs a big leap of faith. This is indeed maibe the strongest argument for theism.

No.

This is a post hoc argument that assumes these constants must be so for our life to exists. It's possible that these constants could be different and an entirely different life form would arise from it.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t..._principle

3. Life. Abiogenesis has not been able to explain the existence of life on earth. Science cannot explain it. There are strong reasons to believe, a natural origin is not probable, and a bad explanation. First of all, why whould dead rocks need to evolve, to create life ? Secondly, just one living cell is more complex than the most complex machine created by man. A living cell is irreducible complex. All parts must be on place, making a gradual evolution not possible.
Even the simplest cell needs DNA , which is a information carrier. Information is always created by a mind. There i no natural mechanism known to man, to create information. Information is by essence spiritual, and not physical. There is no bridge to cross the gulf from material to spiritual. Even through millions of years of evolution. Its not possible. Add to this the moral argument, experience of miracles, the testimony of the bible, and you have a nice case of theism.

No. Abiogenesis is an ongoing area of research. Just because it has not conclusively proven how life arose, it doesn't mean it's wrong, it simply means it's proven.

However, the Urey-Miller experiment successful showed that amino acids, the building blocks of life, can arise from non-life. It may not have perfectly recreated the conditions of early earth, but just knowing it's possible is a big step in the right direction.

Abiogenesis does not claim a rock came to life. Clearly you do not understand it and need to learn more.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...biogenesis

Irreducible complexity has been completely debunked. Science has shown repeatedly how complex systems can arise purely through evolution.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...complexity

Even the simplest cell needs DNA , which is a information carrier. Information is always created by a mind. There i no natural mechanism known to man, to create information. Information is by essence spiritual, and not physical. There is no bridge to cross the gulf from material to spiritual. Even through millions of years of evolution. Its not possible. Add to this the moral argument, experience of miracles, the testimony of the bible, and you have a nice case of theism.

No. This is a tautological argument that simply assumes information must have a mind to think it in order to exist. This is not a falsifiable claim, therefore not scientific.

Information is a label we give. The way you think of information, and what we mean by information in DNA are not the same thing. You're conflating words.

For a list of further reasons why this argument fails, go here:
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...y_Argument

I've listed all these articles not only in the misguided hope you'll read and learn something, but to show you that we've heard these arguments before and they've been thoroughly refuted and debunked. There is nothing new about anything you have said. I've heard it all before.

It seems to me that you are simply repeating failed apologetics from some website. You'll need to do better than that.

[LastPoet]

Please define the god of the bible and present evidence for it!

[NoGodaloud ?]

How do you get from "The Universe had a beginning..." to "That cause must be blabla...",

I do it based on empirical experience, that nothing begins to exist without a cause. Otherwise, Ferraris would pop up into existence out of nothing, all the time, for example.

On what do you base this bare assertion? And in this assertion where is the necessity of being just the god of the bible, and none of the others that people pray to? How do you know this?

If beyond the universe, there was no time, no space, no matter, then the cause of the universe must have been timeless, spaceless, transcendent, beginningless, very powerful, and personal, since this cause had to take a decision, to create the universe. This description fits best the God of the bible.

You are disregarding the ton of proof on evolution

you can apply evolution only after the first life appeared on earth. You cannot apply it to explain the origin and finetuning of the universe, chemical evolution, and abiogenesis.

and using probabilities, something that isn't probable is not impossible.

http://www.faithinterface.com.au/science...rse-theory

“How many universes then would you need to make it at all probable that one of them could be like our universe? String theorists posit a number of 10 to the power of 500….Now that is an awful lot of universes, particularly since the estimate for the total number of atoms in the entire observable universe is no more than 10 to the power of 80.”

thats such a astonishingly small probability, so that based on Borel's law, we can confidently say, chance is a very bad explanation for the existence of our life permitting universe.

You know nothing about evolution

do you know me, to say, what i know, and what i don't, btw ?

what about all the species that became extinct before us? Were they fine tuned to become extinct?

they had to be created in first place.

And what about the asteroids that may hit the earth from time to time? Were they finely tuned to hit the Earth and probably whipe us out?

If there were no platet jupiter, which attracts almost all asteroids, in fact it would have happened.

Are you sure there isn't other life out there?

I am very confident to say, yes, i don't believe, there are aliens out there.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/astronom...y-t232.htm

The data demonstrate that the probability of finding even one planet with the capacity to support life falls short of one chance in 10^140 (that number is 1 followed by 140 zeros).

And again, I ask for a proof of that designer, and why must he be the one in the bible.

i have no proof, and i think it makes no sense to ask for proofs.

Abiogenesis may not explain well the origin of life yet, but that is where the evidence points

Nope. exactly because it cannot be explained by natural means, it points to supernatural origin.

and alot of knowledge has been got from that, and science is working on that. However you make bold assertions, without proving anything

What science already knows, is enough to make confident predictions. It would be too much to explain by own words, why abiogenesis does not work, but if you want some thoughtful insight, i recommend you , to have a read at this site.

http://www.detectingdesign.com/abiogenesis.html

Please define god and give me positive evidence of its existence.

God is the supreme being of the universe. God is a unbodied mind, He is righteous and just, love, good, free from sin, he is perfect in his character and person, he is righteous in all His attitudes and actions, he is eternal, without a beginning, and without a end, he is omniscient, omnipresent, limitless in authority, immutable, he is the truth. Moreover, God is self-existent, nonspatial, nonmaterial, unimaginably powerful, and personal.

Gods existence can be deduce through creation, through his word, the bible, and through personal experience.

---

Please define the god of the bible and present evidence for it!

God is the supreme being of the universe. God is a unbodied mind, He is righteous and just, love, good, free from sin, he is perfect in his character and person, he is righteous in all His attitudes and actions, he is eternal, without a beginning, and without a end, he is omniscient, omnipresent, limitless in authority, immutable, he is the truth. Moreover, God is self-existent, nonspatial, nonmaterial, unimaginably powerful, and personal.

you ask too much, to present evidence for the description i gave. Sorry, but i have not enough time, the answer would be too much timeconsuming to be wrote down. If you want a better indepth understanding, please have a look of my page at my forum.

Who is God, essence of God.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/does-god...79.htm#175

[ABierman1986]

@NoGodAloud; Nice proselytizing. The links you posted made me cringe, please, please, please please don't post those anywhere else. The last thing we need is for the ignorance and wrong information they present to spread further. I am literally begging you not to show those to anymore people. I'll go ahead and post a corrected version of them when I get some time....and I'll use citations, studies, and evidence based information even, what a thought.


And we know everything about you that you've told us, that seems to be enough....

[Eilonnwy]

I think you don't know Goedels incomplete theorem.

I have a personal virtual library, where i collect answers to issues, which i regard relevant, and which makes it easyer for me to find the information i want.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/philosop...m-t274.htm

Faith and Reason are not enemies. In fact, the exact opposite is true! One is absolutely necessary for the other to exist. All reasoning ultimately traces back to faith in something that you cannot prove.

No. Faith is what people resort to when they have no good reason for believing what they do. Science is based on the scientific method, which is the most reliable way of proving what is most likely to be true. It makes claims, it does not assume the outcome, it can tests those claims, those claims are falsifiable, and best of all, if better evidence comes along to disprove a claim, or prove a previously discarded claim, science will change its thinking.

For example you cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times. You can only observe that it’s consistently true every time. Nearly all scientific laws are based on inductive reasoning. All of science rests on an assumption that the universe is orderly, logical and mathematical based on fixed discoverable laws.

I can prove gravity because if I take a pen and drop it, it will fall. This is testable. It's repeatable. It's falsifiable. If one day I drop a pen and it doesn't fall, I will reconsider gravity. I don't take it on faith, I believe it on the consistent results it provides.

You cannot PROVE this. (You can’t prove that the sun will come up tomorrow morning either.) You literally have to take it on faith. In fact most people don’t know that outside the science circle is a philosophy circle. Science is based on philosophical assumptions that you cannot scientifically prove. Actually, the scientific method cannot prove, it can only infer.
(Science originally came from the idea that God made an orderly universe which obeys fixed, discoverable laws - and because of those laws, He would not have to constantly tinker with it in order for it to operate.)

Science is based on the scientific method. It may not prove to absolute certainty, but it is the best way of determining what it is most likely true. It is a tool to meet the burden of proof regarding carious hypotheses. You clearly cannot do that.

You might never know in the sense of find absolute proof. These you will find only in mathematical formulas. But you can think , and find out the most rational and reasonable answer to a series of things.
Specially today, where our scientific knowledge is advanced as never before, and alouds us to have a insight of how our universe, and living beings work. This gives us a platform to deductive reasoning, as we never before had. So its really not wrong to believe, to deduce God as being the best answer, because no other answer makes sense to explain things of our natural world. If you say " i don't know " at the beginning of a scientific journey, that makes perfectly sense. To say however still " i don't know", how it might happened, that first life arose on earth, after you have over 50 years of advanced study, is quit a different thing. After you know, that a living eukaryotic cell contains many hundreds of thousands of different complex parts, including various motor proteins. These parts must be assembled correctly to produce a living cell, the most complex ‘machine’ in the universe—far more complex than a Cray supercomputer. You can say, after the question arises, how it could have arised : " i don't know", or you could say : a natural origin is very unlikely, specially because a living cell contains DNA , which is complex and specific encoded information, and information comes always from a mind. Therefore, the most probable explanation, is, that God created life.

I bolded the important bit that basically invalidates your argument as one big argument from personal incredulity. It's a logical fallacy, I've already pointed it out to you.

And once again, irreducible complexity has been thoroughly debunked.

I really don't think so.

And truth is not based on what you think.

Micro-evolution is. Macro-evolution is controversial, So its not a fact.

Macro-evolution is not controversial within established science. Creationists from the discovery institute don't count.

Good that you agree on this. Since the Big Bang is the beginning of our universe, it has a cause. What cause do you suggest ?

I don't need to suggest a cause, I simply reject yours. You have the burden of proof, and you have failed to meet it.

You have far from explained a series of issues, which also demand a explanation :

how was the universe finely tuned to life ? how did life arise on earth ? why is there Sex ? why are we , humans , conscious, and have thoughts, and the ability of speak ? how do you explain the information contained in DNA ? how do you explain the conscience of morality ?

Oh dear. Well I hit finely tuned, abiogenesis, and DNA information above.

There is sex because life evolved from asexual organisms to bisexual organisms.

Consciousness is the product of the brain. Neuroscience is a great new field of study and what it finds consistently reaffirms that everything that makes us who we are is contained entirely within our brain.

Morality is a construct of social animals. It is subjective and has evolved over time. Other animals display morality, not just humans.

If you really want to understand evolution and how it's work, Dawkins' book "The Greatest Show on Earth" is pretty good.

You cannot base your world view only os science. Science is very limited to explain our existence. It can explain and explore the natural world, and even this only in a limited degree. But it cannot go further than explore our universe. It can't explain, why and for what reason certain things happen.

You're assuming there is a reason. There doesn't have to be.

We don't know, but we can think about what is the best answer to this question. What was the singularity? It was indeed point zero, from which the Big bang started. Beyond it, there was nothing physical. No time, no matter, no space. So from this starting point, it follows rationally, that the Big Bang most probably must have had a cause. It could not create itself, since it did not exist prior to it.

No. If we do not have the evidence to support a claim, all we're doing is guessing, and one guess is as good as yours. I'm going to guess it was Xenu, how do you know your guess is better than mine?

two reasons ( but there are more, btw.) Second law of thermodynamics. If the universe would be eternal, the universe would already be on a state of heath death. Secondly, because
[/hide]
http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5231

Are numbers potentially infinite? Yes, sure they are. They can potentially go on forever and ever. Potentially, the quantity of numbers is infinitely large. There's no end to them. Now, how do you ever get from a potential infinity to an infinity when it comes to numbers? Well, you can start counting--one, two, three, four, five, billion one, billion two, a zillion one, two, a quintillion one, a quintillion two. Keep going. Do you realize that at any particular point in time as you keep adding one number to another--a procedure which potentially could go on forever--that you haven't really accomplished that feat? You haven't really gone on forever, have you? The number gets bigger and bigger, of course. But at every particular point you happen to be counting at, your count describes a finite number. Will you ever get to eternity by counting, adding one number onto another? The answer is no, you won't.

there is no infinite number of events that goes backward from this point in time, only a finite number of events. Here's another way of putting it. If you can't get into the infinite future from a fixed reference point (the present) by adding consecutive events one by one, you cannot get into the infinite past by subtracting consecutive events, one by one, from a fixed reference point (the present). If you can't transverse the distance in one direction (present to infinite past), you can't transverse it in the other direction (infinite past to present). This means that if the universe consisted of an infinite series of events in time, you could never arrive at this present moment.[/hide]

Did this already. The second law of thermodynamics is a failed argument. Entropy is not disorder, it talks about a closed system, the universe is not a closed system. Try again!

[quote='NoGodaloud ?' pid='88097' dateline='1282270466']
To ask proofs of Gods existence is sensless. Gods existence cannot be proven. Thats why the right philosophical question is : how can we best explain our existence ?

No. First you admit that your position is not based on any type of scientific evidence, it is merely a faith based position. Faith is not proof. And you question is flawed, loaded, and oh that pesky argument from personal incredulity. If you are going to try to argue and convince me that god exists, you must meet your burden of proof. If you admit you cannot prove god exists, then you're out of gas.

I don't make simple assertions. I do deductive reasoning, based on scientific knowledge, based on facts, we know through science.

All you've done is make assertions. You admitted you don't have proof. You use failed counter apologetics, and consistently argue from personal incredulity.

Also, if you were that dude in the chat who called me atheist scum....god god god god god god god. If you're not, feel free to ignore.

[NoGodaloud ?]

I deal with it fine. The second law deals with closed systems, the universe is not a closed system. Furthermore, it is talking about entropy, not disorder. They are two different things.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...modynamics

i think our universe is a closed system.

http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/1...eginning-0

Science supports Einstein's claim that the universe is a closed system. That means it has finite energy. Even though energy cannot be created or destroyed (by any natural processes), over time the useful energy in the universe becomes more and more useless. This is known in science as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If the universe were eternal then all of the energy would have become totally useless by now and I wouldn't be writing this article and you wouldn't be reading it either!

Humans have a hard time grasping infinity, just as you have shown.

actually no. we know exactly, what infinity is, and what contradictory result it gives, when dealt with it.
My presented point is perfectly valid, and explains, why a infinite universe cannot exist in reality, only in hypothetically. Our universe most probably is finite, and this goes in accordance with most astronomers and physicists, like Vilenkin, Guth, Penrose, Davies, and others.

Read "God the Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger, he tackles the nothing bit, buuut, as I've said before, it didn't necessarily come from nothing anyway.

Stenger supposes a Multiverse. For witch there is no scientific evidence whatsoever. It has just be invented, to avoid a tuner of our finely tuned universe. Beside this, according to some string theorists, there would be needed 1 to 10^500 attempts to create a life supporting universe by trial and error. That is a number, six times larger than all atoms that exist in our universe. A inimaginable big number. Beside this, if a infinite number of universes would exist, than not only everything COULD happen, but would HAVE to happen. Michael Jackson would get one hundred years old, the US would have already attacked Iran, and Elvis would have been a pastor, and sing some gospel music. Sorry, but i don't buy into completely speculative theories without any evidence whatsoever. Moreover, according to Occam's Razor, the less complicate answer should be choosen. A intelligent designer certainly is a less complex origin, than a multiverse.

If everything has a cause, then what caused God?

Since God created time, he could not be subject to time. Time started with the Big Bang. God lived therefore beyond our universe in a timeless eternity, without beginning, and without a end. He simply is.

You've simply made assertions that god exists and must have these characteristics to be an uncaused cause. You've given no logical reasoning or proof. Just bare assertions.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...irst_cause

When it comes to issues outside the scientific realm, we can only do philosophical reasoning.

This is a post hoc argument that assumes these constants must be so for our life to exists.

Of course not. These are results of scientific studies. Even proeminent atheists, like Stenger, Dawkins, Hawking, Rees, Penrose, Davies, and many others aknowledge the fact, that our universe is finely tuned to life.

It's possible that these constants could be different and an entirely different life form would arise from it.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t..._principle

If these constants would be changed even a little, no universe at all would come into existence. For example, the expansion rate of the universe had to be finely tuned to one to 10^120 magnitude of order.
there were speculation, that life could be based on silicon, but this theory did not withstand scrutiny.

No. Abiogenesis is an ongoing area of research. Just because it has not conclusively proven how life arose, it doesn't mean it's wrong, it simply means it's proven.

No matter, how much time science continues with its research, what we know already, lets us confidently exclude a natural origin of the first cell.

http://www.detectingdesign.com/abiogenesis.html

Obviously both DNA and/or RNA and the fully formed decoding protein system would have to be present at the same time in order for the system as a whole to work. There simply is no stepwise function-based selection process since natural selection isn't even capable of working at this point in time.

However, the Urey-Miller experiment successful showed that amino acids, the building blocks of life, can arise from non-life.

there is much more needed, that just these building blocks. Information, actually, that is contained in DNA. Information has always a mind as origin. Therefore, DNA must have been programmed through a mind. If you can show me coded information, which arose naturally, by chance, you will win a one million dollar prize.

It may not have perfectly recreated the conditions of early earth, but just knowing it's possible is a big step in the right direction.

This is just wishful thinking. The Miller Experiment has not shown its possible.

Abiogenesis does not claim a rock came to life. Clearly you do not understand it and need to learn more.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...biogenesis

What reason would inorganic matter have, to form by itself in a way, to form life ? What kind of survival advantage would there be ? survive of what, actually, it inorganic matter is dead anyway ? what mechanism do you suggest to promote this event ?

Irreducible complexity has been completely debunked. Science has shown repeatedly how complex systems can arise purely through evolution.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...complexity

i think thats far from being true. sorry to not get in more indepth here, but that would demand too much, so i will leave just a website, which you can eventually study further :

http://www.discovery.org/a/3408

No. This is a tautological argument that simply assumes information must have a mind to think it in order to exist. This is not a falsifiable claim, therefore not scientific.

You are actually wrong. It is a falsifiable claim. Just present a complex and specific code, which arose by chance, naturally, and you won this argument. All you need to present, is just one.

Information is a label we give. The way you think of information, and what we mean by information in DNA are not the same thing. You're conflating words.

I don't think so. DNA is according to practically all the entire literature of biology defined literally as a code, and not a figurative one.

For a list of further reasons why this argument fails, go here:
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...y_Argument

lets have a look at your website, what kind of response they give :

"Chaos can produce patterns but it has never been shown to produce codes or symbols" Though the process of random mutation and natural selection is not chaotic, it is a self-correcting mechanism that generates brute force solutions to problems by trial and error. Natural selection is what makes the pattern in the dna useful to achieve its basic characteristic property being self replication

first of all, they fail , since natural selection and random mutation did start with the first cell alive, not before. Secondly. Lets see, how chance could produce information randomly.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/origin-o...r-t287.htm

It has been calculated that it would be statistically impossible to randomly type even the first 100 characters in Shakespeare's "Hamlet". If the monkeys typed only in lower case, including the 27 spaces in the first 100 characters, the chances are 27^100

I think that says it all.....

I've listed all these articles not only in the misguided hope you'll read and learn something, but to show you that we've heard these arguments before and they've been thoroughly refuted and debunked.

Shall that be a joke, or what ????????

---

. I'll go ahead and post a corrected version of them when I get some time....

yes, feel free to go straight to the issues......

[Eilonnwy]

I'll respond tomorrow. I'm going to bed.

[LastPoet]

I do it based on empirical experience, that nothing begins to exist without a cause. Otherwise, Ferraris would pop up into existence out of nothing, all the time, for example.

If Nothing exists without a cause, what caused god then? Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, what empirical proof you have of this then?

If beyond the universe, there was no time, no space, no matter, then the cause of the universe must have been timeless, spaceless, transcendent, beginningless, very powerful, and personal, since this cause had to take a decision, to create the universe. This description fits best the God of the bible.

How do you know there was no time? Yet again, you are repeating yourself... What makes you conclude from timeless, etc, that that is a god, and more precisely, your god?

you can apply evolution only after the first life appeared on earth. You cannot apply it to explain the origin and finetuning of the universe, chemical evolution, and abiogenesis.

I already told you, there is evidence of abiogenesis, you have not yet given me any proof and testable means of mesuring this "fine tuning". (this is called argument from design)

“How many universes then would you need to make it at all probable that one of them could be like our universe? String theorists posit a number of 10 to the power of 500….Now that is an awful lot of universes, particularly since the estimate for the total number of atoms in the entire observable universe is no more than 10 to the power of 80.”

thats such a astonishingly small probability, so that based on Borel's law, we can confidently say, chance is a very bad explanation for the existence of our life permitting universe.

Those probabilities are wrong.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Probability-of-E...stial-Life

do you know me, to say, what i know, and what i don't, btw ?

Sorry, if that offends you, but you have shown you know nothing about Evolution or science

they had to be created in first place.

You still haven't answered my question, how is that fine tuning, and how does that conform to your definition of 'perfect' you gave your god below in your post?

If there were no platet jupiter, which attracts almost all asteroids, in fact it would have happened.

Jupiter has a great gravitational well, yes, but that does not mean asteroids and comets do not cross earth's Orbit, Example: comet swift-tuttle. See, this is why I say you now nothing about science, you simple make bare assertions to fit your delusion, and ignore evidence of the contrary.

Nope. exactly because it cannot be explained by natural means, it points to supernatural origin.

That is a blatant argument from ignorance: Just because you can't think of anything better or science cant explain yet, therefore god did it. Its a known logical fallacy.

God is the supreme being of the universe. God is a unbodied mind, He is righteous and just, love, good, free from sin, he is perfect in his character and person, he is righteous in all His attitudes and actions, he is eternal, without a beginning, and without a end, he is omniscient, omnipresent, limitless in authority, immutable, he is the truth. Moreover, God is self-existent, nonspatial, nonmaterial, unimaginably powerful, and personal.

Gods existence can be deduce through creation, through his word, the bible, and through personal experience.

You never read the bible did you? And on your last sentence, you deduce from something unproven(creation), base yourself on a old book of desert scribblings, and trough your wishfull thinking that there is a magical sky-daddy that cares about your sex life. Please man...

I am sorry If I soind condescending, but it is frustrating that you haven't used a single original argument, and all that you used are so over-debunked its not funny anymore. Can't you think for yourself? There are alot of christians around that do a better job in this matter.

[NoGodaloud ?]

I can prove gravity because if I take a pen and drop it, it will fall. This is testable. It's repeatable. It's falsifiable. If one day I drop a pen and it doesn't fall, I will reconsider gravity. I don't take it on faith, I believe it on the consistent results it provides.

In the same way, we can confidently say, DNA has as origin a mind, since no natural mechanism to create information, is known to men. The day, a natural mechanism is found, this deduction can be reconsidered.

I bolded the important bit that basically invalidates your argument as one big argument from personal incredulity. It's a logical fallacy, I've already pointed it out to you.

the point is, i have good reasons not to believe in a natural origin of life. If my argument would be simply an unsupported statement of unbelief, you had a good point. Quit the oposit is the case however, as already shown. Its not conceivable, that the first cell arose by chance . Is incredulity btw. not the foundation of any critical thought ?

Macro-evolution is not controversial within established science. Creationists from the discovery institute don't count.

Its not controversial, because established science is commited to the philosophy of naturalism, aka. all phenomenons should be explained naturally, without invoking the supernatural. Established science has however failed to explain, why it should be so.

I don't need to suggest a cause, I simply reject yours.

I have not established WHAT cause i think is the most probable one to deduce, but only, that based on the experience, that everything that begins to exist, has a cause, the universe, as it had a beginning, most probably does need a cause as well. If you do not agree on this, then a big question mark remains : you accept the law of gravity, but you believe, our universe does not need a cause, despite all other things, that begin to exist, need one ?

You have the burden of proof, and you have failed to meet it.

i have not the goal to prove something here.

Oh dear. Well I hit finely tuned, abiogenesis, and DNA information above.

you really do not convince.......

There is sex because life evolved from asexual organisms to bisexual organisms.

so simple that is, isnt it ?

unfortunately, science has however no clue, how to explain sex, which brings no advantage of survival at all......why could there organisms not reproduced asexually ? that would be much easier. And there are animals, that procreate asexually, like some fishes. That are major headages for evolutionists.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...ution.html

Consciousness is the product of the brain. Neuroscience is a great new field of study and what it finds consistently reaffirms that everything that makes us who we are is contained entirely within our brain.

how do you explain then near death experiences ?

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/the-bibl...ht=dualism

"During a night shift an ambulance brings in a 44-year-old cyanotic, comatose man into the coronary care unit. He had been found about an hour before in a meadow by passers-by. After admission, he receives artificial respiration without intubation, while heart massage and defibrillation are also applied. When we want to intubate the patient, he turns out to have dentures in his mouth. I remove these upper dentures and put them onto the 'crash car'. Meanwhile, we continue extensive CPR. After about an hour and a half the patient has sufficient heart rhythm and blood pressure, but he is still ventilated and intubated, and he is still comatose. He is transferred to the intensive care unit to continue the necessary artificial respiration. Only after more than a week do I meet again with the patient, who is by now back on the cardiac ward. I distribute his medication. The moment he sees me he says: 'Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are'. I am very surprised. Then he elucidates: 'Yes, you were there when I was brought into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them onto that car, it had all these bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer underneath and there you put my teeth.' I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of CPR. When I asked further, it appeared the man had seen himself lying in bed, that he had perceived from above how nurses and doctors had been busy with CPR. He was also able to describe correctly and in detail the small room in which he had been resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present like myself. At the time that he observed the situation he had been very much afraid that we would stop CPR and that he would die. And it is true that we had been very negative about the patient's prognosis due to his very poor medical condition when admitted. The patient tells me that he desperately and unsuccessfully tried to make it clear to us that he was still alive and that we should continue CPR. He is deeply impressed by his experience and says he is no longer afraid of death. 4 weeks later he left hospital as a healthy man."

Morality is a construct of social animals. It is subjective and has evolved over time. Other animals display morality, not just humans.

amazing. What animals ?

If you really want to understand evolution and how it's work, Dawkins' book "The Greatest Show on Earth" is pretty good.

I have read Dawkins God delusion. After about half, i stopped reading. Its really junk food, without consistent arguments whatsoever. I am completely unimpressed with him, actually , i am wondering, how so many people take him serious.

You're assuming there is a reason. There doesn't have to be.

thats true. A life without a deeper meaning is however completely absurd. Its late now, so i will abreviate with this link, which treats about this issue :

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News...le&id=5389

No. If we do not have the evidence to support a claim, all we're doing is guessing, and one guess is as good as yours. I'm going to guess it was Xenu, how do you know your guess is better than mine?

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/astronom...t-t132.htm

By definition, nothing has no potentialities. Thus, it is impossible for something to arise out of nothing, for how can its existence be actualized if the potential is not there? The truth of the causal premise is additionally supported by our everyday experience. If the causal premise were false, then it is quite odd as to why we don't observe things coming into existence uncaused and out of nothing in our everyday experience. Presumably, nobody lives their life worrying about the possibility of an elephant suddenly appearing out of nothing in their living room.

Did this already. The second law of thermodynamics is a failed argument. Entropy is not disorder, it talks about a closed system, the universe is not a closed system. Try again!

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/astronom...e-t144.htm

Even though energy cannot be created or destroyed (by any natural processes), over time the useful energy in the universe becomes more and more useless. This is known in science as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If the universe were eternal then all of the energy would have become totally useless by now and I wouldn't be writing this article and you wouldn't be reading it either!

No. First you admit that your position is not based on any type of scientific evidence, it is merely a faith based position.

Where did i admit that ?